Movie Review ~ Mother’s Day

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Three generations come together in the week leading up to Mother’s Day.

Stars: Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson, Julia Roberts, Jason Sudeikis, Britt Robertson, Timothy Olyphant, Hector Elizondo, Jack Whitehall

Director: Garry Marshall

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 118 minutes

Trailer Review: Here

TMMM Score: (1/10)

Review: At one point not too far into the two very long hours of Mother’s Day I became convinced the movie was created by space aliens branching out into the film industry. No, really. I mean, how else to explain away this stinker which is an utter black hole of laughs, common sense, and good taste? The third of director Garry Marshall’s ensemble movies comes after the equally stinky Valentine’s Day and the dead on arrival New Year’s Eve; one shudders at the thought of Bastille Day getting the greenlight in a few years.

I’m a fan of ensemble movies that weave together multiple storylines to show the cross currents of life for a group of people. Robert Altman did that to perfection in Short Cuts and I’ve always had a fondness for Willard Carroll’s surprisingly wise Playing by Heart. Marshall, on the other hand, is no Altman and aside from snagging two solid leading ladies to roll around in this slop fest he’s compiled a cast of questionable talent ranking high on the nepotism meter. Stick around for the credits, not just for bloopers much funnier than anything that came before it but to count how many Marshalls show up in the cast roster.

If the acting is overall dreadful, the script from Anya Kochoff-Romano, Matt Walker, & Tom Hines is a poo-ey potpourri of archaic lameness, saddling Oscar winner Julia Roberts (Secret in Their Eyes) with meeting the daughter (Britt Robertson, Tomorrowland) she gave up for a career and somehow making her seem like a “less-than”, and having poor Jennifer Aniston (Cake) play yet another divorcee with an ex-husband that’s married a younger woman worried about losing the affection of her kids to her barely legal replacement. Jason Sudekis (on his fourth outing with Aniston after We’re the Millers) is a widowed dad of two girls that’s shocked when his eldest daughter asks him to buy tampons…nevermind that their mom (played in an embarrassing cameo by someone that’s already had a pretty tough year on the marriage front) has been dead for nearly a year.  Did she just have a box from Costco that lasted that long? Let’s not forget Kate Hudson (The Reluctant Fundamentalist) being surprised by her backwards-thinking parents who blaze into town in a Winnebago, only to find one daughter (Sarah Chalke) is a lesbian and their other daughter has married a, wait for it, “towelhead”.

There’s no reality or time to speak of in Marshall’s fantasy-land where people can not only select, finance, and purchase expensive cars overnight but have personalized license plates made (at the all-night license plate store?) and don’t even get me started on how a character living in Las Vegas can fly to Atlanta in under an hour. Then there are the extravagant parties planned in the time it takes to boil water, the curated wedding that happens mere moments after a proposal, the appearance of Kate Hudson’s gigantic ear, and that famously terrible wig Roberts is sporting.

No doubt about it, this is one surreally awful film and likely (hopefully?) the last time Marshall will sit in a director’s chair. From the annoyingly bouncy soundtrack, obviously produced by someone who last picked out the tunes for a JC Penney’s in Tucson, to the outright gaffes that show how rushed this film was, I’m constantly reminded what a hack director Marshall is…when he does get a film right (Beaches, Pretty Woman) it almost seems like a mistake. The only mistake you can make here is seeing this…and I’ll say this right now: if you take your mom to this you’re a terrible child.

Movie Review ~ Green Room

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The Facts:

Synopsis: After witnessing a murder, a punk rock band is forced into a vicious fight for survival against a group of maniacal skinheads.

Stars: Patrick Stewart, Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, Callum Turner, Mark Webber, Eric Edelstein, Macon Blair, Kai Lennox

Director: Jeremy Saulnier

Rated: R

Running Length: 95 minutes

TMMM Score: (8/10)

Review: This is how I know I’m getting old. When I watch America’s Funniest Home Videos, I cringe when people fall down instead of rolling on the ground laughing like I used to. At amusement parks, I think about hurting my back when considering a towering rollercoaster. And overly gory films cause me to yelp and cover my eyes as I squirm in my seat instead of satisfying the demented cinematic bloodlust that drove me directly to the horror section of any video store I ever entered as a youth.

So you have to understand why Green Room was such an uncomfortable, yet thrillingly visceral, experience for me. Following a punk rock band of stoned out millennials into a backwoods neo-Nazi bar where they find themselves targeted for extermination, Green Room is one of those films you must steel yourself up for. The violence is shocking and sickening, not just because it comes out of nowhere but because it feels like some taboo boundaries of taste are being broken. Stomachs are slit open, throats are mangled, limbs nearly severed…and that’s just the tip of the bloody iceberg director Jeremy Saulnier has in store for audiences that dare to enter.

It’s safe to say that any film that boasts Patrick Stewart (The Wolverine) as its headline star has some level of sophistication and for all the entrails spilled and bones broken it’s a handsomely made picture, well-designed to feel contained yet not claustrophobic. Dimly lit interiors go nicely with the stark solemnity of the northwest forest that surrounds the club and the band as they spend a night trying to survive Stewart and his gang of skinheads.

With a breaking voice that sounds like he’s just getting it back, Anton Yelchin (Only Lovers Left Alive) is a gangly hero that spends the first twenty or so minutes in a quiet daze only to be jolted into the present by the very unfortunate circumstance he finds himself in. Alia Shawkat (The To Do List), Joe Cole (Secret in Their Eyes), and Callum Turner (Victor Frankenstein) are his bandmates, all distinctly written by Saulnier even without an excess of defining dialogue.

Who lives and who dies isn’t as clearly telegraphed as you may think, with allies popping up in unlikely places only to not be the saviors we think they are. Sporting a new wave mullet, Imogen Poots (That Awkward Moment) glums around the perimeter of the action and is barely a presence until she’s called into action. Saulnier isn’t afraid to dispatch characters with little fanfare or reverence, yet the sadness of their violent deaths weighed heavily on my mind for days after.

It’s a fairly haunting film overall, with no real satisfaction gained when the credits roll. What gratification is present is seeing a director making the most out of his remaining time helming indie-ish projects. After the success of Blue Ruin and now this razor sharp crime thriller, it’s clear that while the characters he writes go down hard, Saulnier is only going up.